The Achievements of Augustus Caesar

May it be my privilege to have the happiness of establishing the commonwealth on a firm and secure basis and thus enjoy the reward which I desire, but only if I may be called the author of the best possible government; and bear with me the hope when I die that the foundations which I have laid for its future government, will stand firm and stable.

— Augustus Caesar [1]

Legend has it that Alexander the Great at thirty-two had sighed for fresh worlds to conquer. When Augustus learnt of this, he expressed his surprise “that Alexander did not regard the right ordering of the empire he had won a heavier task than winning it” [2]. Unlike Alexander, Augustus took on the heavier task. from http://janusquirinus.org/

Augustus is arguably the most successful ruler ever and his was one of the greatest constructive successes in history. He “found his world, as it seemed, on the verge of complete collapse” [3]. Rome had undergone almost a century worth of civil unrest: assassinations, riots, coups d’etat, and outright civil wars. “He evoked order out of chaos” [4], “peace was re-established and the madness of armed conflict was assuaged in every quarter” [5]. Some called it a “peace of despotism” [6] because in place of the Roman Republic, Augustus founded the Roman Empire. But even his enemies had to admit that civil war was worse than an illegal monarchy [7]—“They preferred the safety of the present to the dangerous past” [8]. from http://janusquirinus.org/

“[T]he most consummate politician Rome had ever seen” [9], Augustus “displayed a consummate ability to utilise people’s services, to play men off against each other, and to maintain a convincing self-righteousness in the most unpromising of situations” [10]. “He became expert at transferring the blame for any disturbance onto his opponents, while presenting himself as the innocent injured party” [11]. “Such were the ingredients of charisma in a man who from his earliest years proved himself to be a mature demagogue and a deft manipulator of opinion” [12]. But more importantly, Augustus was a masterly statesman—“He worked ceaselessly to maintain the order thus established, and nearly every part of his great empire had reasons to be grateful for increased security, expanding prosperity, and added amenity of life” [13]. from http://janusquirinus.org/

His methods for his success “were based on a cold realism in identifying the essential in each situation, his caution and his gift for public relations” [14]. His political genius lay in his grasp of the fact that to reform the empire, he had to preserve the Republic, thus the phrase “Restoration of the Republic”. Under this restored Republic, Augustus was only the first citizen, the princeps, and modern scholars call his reign “the Principate”. One might call it a sham, yet even his most severe critic said “the ‘Restoration of the Republic’ was not merely a solemn comedy, staged by a hypocrite” [15]. With slow experiment and with pragmatism, Augustus felt his way towards a constitutional settlement [16] with the Senate—a compromise doubtless, but one that advantageous to both. Augustus “consciously strove as an architect working to a new design with old materials” [17], the Republic, and “breathed fresh meaning into old names and institutions” and “could stand forth as a reformer rather than an innovator” [18]. from http://janusquirinus.org/

Augustus “provide[d] the Roman state with a form of permanent governmental supervision” [19] and “he became the founder of an efficient bureaucracy in order to bring about a higher public service” [20]. “Many had come to see this as necessary, but many … had come to grief in the effort to find an acceptable formula for such supervision” [21]. from http://janusquirinus.org/

Routine administration was thoroughly overhauled, and made more efficient by organising them into ministries and boards [22]. He divided the tasks between the Senate and his own civil service. “Government by experts was a favorite resort of Augustus” [23] and he had excellent ministers and agents with talents in their jobs superior to his own [24]. His employees include those who were kept out of government in the Republic just because they were born in the wrong place or the wrong social class. Knights and freedmen all over Italy now had an opportunity to participate in the administration of the Empire. From them, he chose honest administrators and provincial governors. from http://janusquirinus.org/

Augustus also overhauled the judicial system, adding new criminal courts, and perhaps more importantly, the vast extension of appeal [25]. “Not the least of Augustus’s contribution to the stability of Rome in the next two centuries [is to] debilitate the ancient tradition whereby military achievement was the high road to success in public life. But his supreme feat was undoubtedly to put real political power beyond reach of competition” [26]. from http://janusquirinus.org/

Among his many public services in Rome, Augustus or his helpers undertook utility works—most importantly, ensuring water-supply. “Before the end of Augustus's reign water was available for most of the houses in Rome” [27]. He made the city safe again by providing a police force and fire-brigades. “For the problem of coping with the recurrent floods of the Tiber [he] found a partial solution in the widening of its bed” [28]. He organised the provisionment to ensure an adequate service of transport, storage and distribution of the grain supply. He maintained free corn-distribution, and when Rome was afflicted by famine, “[f]rom his private funds he ... undertook to alleviate the dearth” [29]. “It is not without significance that under Augustus the city was for the first time called Urbs Aeterna” [30]—the Eternal City. from http://janusquirinus.org/

“Augustus's principal gift to Italy was greater public security” [31]. The countryside had become infested with brigands and Augustus created a special force to patrol the districts. “A greater and more permanent cause of insecurity was removed when Augustus extended the Roman frontier beyond the Alpine chain and thereby gave Italy two centuries of respite from incursions by foreign raiders” [32]. As for the provinces—permanent administration and the suppression of the publicans. from http://janusquirinus.org/

It has been said that he was fortunate. “Fortune certainly favoured him... But he deserved fortune because he put himself in Fortune's way. He owed nothing to good luck in his patient reorganisation of the Empire” [33]. from http://janusquirinus.org/

Admittedly, not all his reforms worked. “The chief was that he laid too heavy an administrative burden on his successors. Not all his ingenuity could devise a means of making the empire fool-proof, and the state suffered when its head was a dolt or a degenerate” [34]. Nor his social reforms of “[m]orality by acts of parliament” feasible [35]. Occasionally, he lacked army funds [36] and he suffered two major military defeats on the frontiers [37]. There were still fires in Rome and throughout the ages, Tiber still flooded. from http://janusquirinus.org/

Yet the Empire prospered for the next two centuries...from http://janusquirinus.org/

continue to Part 2

First published in Suite 101.com.

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